Freed Student: `Suppression Never Wins`

June 12, 1989|By Gary Marx.

Last week, Yu Cheng and her 18-month-old son were held captive by Chinese police on the outskirts of Beijing.

On Sunday, the University of Chicago exchange student told 150 Chinese-Americans at a somber rally in Chinatown about her five-day ordeal, including the daily interrogations about her ties to student protesters demanding more democracy in China. Her voice cracking with emotion, Cheng thanked the audience and other Americans for condemning the attempt by hard-line Chinese leaders to crush the student-led movement, which has resulted in the death or arrest of hundreds of student protesters.

And though Cheng expressed concern for the victims of the recent crackdown, she voiced optimism about the inevitable victory of the pro-democracy movement.

``It (the movement) will survive . . . because suppression never wins,``

said Cheng, 30, who arrived in Chicago Saturday night and was accompanied at the rally by her husband, Li Sanyuan, and her infant son, Payton Lee.

Cheng`s speech and her comments later to reporters were the highlight of the first rally held by Chinese-American community leaders in Chicago in support of the 2-month-old pro-democracy movement. The rally, organized by Chicago-based Mid-American Association for Democracy in China, was held in conjunction with similar demonstrations in New York, San Francisco and other American cities. Previous rallies in Chicago were organized by Chinese exchange students from the Midwest.

``We want to show the Chinese people in mainland China that the American Chinese community is unified in support of the democratic movement,`` said Ying Y. Wu, chairman of the group that includes 60 Chinese-American community organizations. ``We want to show that we support them morally and financially.``

Wu said his group hopes to raise $100,000 in the next few months from Chicago`s 40,000 Chinese-Americans to support the political activities of Chinese exchange students in the U.S. and their counterparts in China.

At least some of the money will be used to purchase facsimile machines, telephone answering machines and other equipment to improve communications between the pro-democracy support network here and demonstrators in China.

Wu and most other Chinese-American leaders previously have had little contact with mainland Chinese exchange students in the U.S. because most Chinese-American leaders are fierce anticommmunists from Taiwan and Hong Kong. But Wu and other leaders said they now view the students with more sympathy.

``They (the students) are fighting for freedom and democracy. Whatever they need we will help them,`` said Andrew Lee, chairman of the Chinese-American Community Center and a native of Hong Kong.

Cheng, who is four months pregnant, said such support is critical at a time when most student leaders have fled underground to avoid arrest. Cheng herself was detained last Monday by Chinese police as she and her infant son boarded a plane from Beijing to San Francisco.

During her two-week visit, Cheng participated in antigovernment demonstrations at Tiananmen Square and distributed $3,000 in donations from Chinese in the U.S. to student leaders in China.

``They wanted to know what I did during my stay, what people I contacted, what we talked about,`` said Cheng of her interrogators. She said she and her American-born son were kept in a government guesthouse formerly used by Zhao Ziyang, reportedly ousted as Communist Party secretary.

``I told them them the truth. I didn`t do anything that can`t be told,``

said Cheng, whose late father was a general, a provincial governor and a close friend of Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung.